iron! Ay, or his huge mouth riven, and
his gullet swelling to suffocation, as he endeavours to swallow the
consecrated bread!"

"Peace, Richard," said the hermit--"oh, peace, for shame, if not for
charity! Who shall praise or honour princes who insult and calumniate
each other? Alas! that a creature so noble as thou art--so accomplished
in princely thoughts and princely daring--so fitted to honour
Christendom by thy actions, and, in thy calmer mood, to rule her by thy
wisdom, should yet have the brute and wild fury of the lion mingled with
the dignity and courage of that king of the forest!"

He remained an instant musing with his eyes fixed on the ground, and
then proceeded--"But Heaven, that knows our imperfect nature, accepts
of our imperfect obedience, and hath delayed, though not averted, the
bloody end of thy daring life. The destroying angel hath stood still, as
of old by the threshing-floor of Araunah the Jebusite, and the blade
is drawn in his hand, by which, at no distant date, Richard, the
lion-hearted, shall be as low as the meanest peasant."

"Must it, then, be so soon?" said Richard. "Yet, even so be it. May my
course be bright, if it be but brief!"

"Alas! noble King," said the solitary, and it seemed as if a tear
(unwonted guest) were gathering in his dry and glazened eye, "short and
melancholy, marked with mortification, and calamity, and captivity, is
the span that divides thee from the grave which yawns for thee--a grave
in which thou shalt be laid without lineage to succeed thee--without
the tears of a people, exhausted by thy ceaseless wars, to lament
thee--without having extended the knowledge of thy subjects--without
having done aught to enlarge their happiness."

"But not without renown, monk--not without the tears of the lady of my
love! These consolations, which thou canst neither know nor estimate,
await upon Richard to his grave."

"DO I not know, CAN I not estimate the value of minstrel's praise and of
lady's love?" retorted the hermit, in a tone which for a moment seemed
to emulate the enthusiasm of Richard himself. "King of England," he
continued, extending his emaciated arm, "the blood which boils in thy
blue veins is not more noble than that which stagnates in mine. Few
and cold as the drops are, they still are of the blood of the royal
Lusignan--of the heroic and sainted Godfrey. I am--that is, I was when
in the world--Alberick Mortemar--"

"Whose deeds," said Richard, "have so